On October 11, I’m giving a one-hour talk called “Death to Jargon,” and I could use your help.
In many ways this talk is just a condensed version of the workshop I’m teaching in November, “Writing for the Web.” For the “Death to Jargon” presentation, hosted by the Outagamie Waupaca Library System, I want to present both bad and good examples of good library writing, and explain how to write the good stuff and avoid the bad stuff.
(You know the bad stuff: that arcane, passive-voice, brain-stem-numb Biblish.)
Wherever, whenever, online, offline: we must stamp out the Jargon Monster!
Do you have examples of sparkling-good, jargon-resistant library writing?
Do you have examples of heinous jargon-laden brain-confusing library writing?
In either case, I’d be ever so grateful if you shared them with me at kgs at freerangelibrarian dot com (unless you want to post them here).
Posted on this day, other years:
- Christianity 2.0 - 2006
- We Feel Pretty - 2005
- The Cuban Human Rights Crackdown: 18 Months and Counting - 2004
I have to point you towards John Kupersmith’s excellent summary of quite a few studies on library jargon http://www.jkup.net/terms.html
Thanks, Laura! I love John’s stuff, and yes, he nails it. I am also looking for fresh new examples…
Feel free to grab anything from this post about verbosity in the DSpace interface. The “Log in via” example is particularly jarring.
If you want vocabulary, DSpace uses “bitstream” where it means “file” all over the UI. I fixed that in the version I’m testing.
OH yeah. I may have to start describing the *types* of jargon I’m talking about.
I’d suggest death to “access” used as a verb and to “thesaurus,” which in practice is pretty much the opposite of what students think it should be, since its purpose is to narrow the range of useful terms instead of broadening. For that matter, I have a feeling “broaden” is confusing. As is “narrow.” And (or?) “Boolean.” If visual jargon is up for consideration, please, oh, please, can’t we kill off those dreadful Venn diagrams? But that’s just me.
I hadn’t listed any of my dark-horse faves, but “citation” is way up there, as is “online” anything, particularly “online database” (which is the “tuna fish” of bibliojargon).
I’m really getting great examples under the radar.
(Hoping “under the radar” isn’t too jargonesque..!)
[…] Search for an item in libraries near you:Enter title, subject or author WorldCat.org >> ← Death to Jargon: Examples Needed […]
As a former software engineer and undergraduate math major, I *like* Venn diagrams, and most all visual explanations.
I know this isn’t a fresh example, but the “keyword search” in most library catalogs desperately needs a new name. “Main entry” and “added entry” are terms that barely have meaning in a relational database, but at least we don’t talk that way to the customers, thank goodness.
Sharon, that’s a great point. I’m more of an auditory learner. I do like to use a demonstration in classes, though, that might be characterized as visual and kinesthetic. (Oh, gosh, jargon is inescapable.) I mean students can see the concept in action and they get a chance to move around. Scan the attire in the room and ask everyone who has on a shirt that has red OR white in it, for example, to stand. Then ask everyone who has a shirt that has red AND white to keep standing. I wish I DID have some software engineering skills to come up with something interactive for our web site so that kind of concept can be taught in an unmediated (yikes!) way.
Sometimes we try to explain how something works when what we really need to do is explain how to get what you want. “To get more results, do X. To get fewer results, do Y.” Then the explanation of why this is can go elsewhere, for the true geeks to read.
I ran into this a little while ago while I was working on a project where I really wanted to reduce the amount of confusing terms we were using.
http://www.csupomona.edu/~library/tutorials/library_jargon.html
When I found this, I thought it was pretty bad.. if your site is so filled with jargon that you feel you need to provide a key for your users, then something is very wrong.
Jargon has a light and a dark side. When used within a domain, with people who understand it, jargon usually increases both precision and efficiency of communication. “OPAC”, “post pattern”, “dongle”, “rickrack”, “riprap”, “ack”, all are useful, even essential, jargon. How long does it take to explain “title proper” in plain English?
Used outside the domain, jargon can be completely mysterious. A friend of ours, with several published books in sewing and quilting, found it very hard to believe that “dongle” was a real word.
Another example: our default synonym file listed “arugula” and “rocket” as synonyms. A customer at Thiokol searched for “rocket fuel” and was mystified by the suggested synonym.
The key for me is “know your audience”. Don’t speak jargon to people outside the domain. Inside the domain, only use it when it really improves communication.
The book “Why business people speak like idiots” has a good glossary of ineffective jargon. Their site (http://www.fightthebull.com/) has some Windows-only software to spot bull in your PowerPoints.
Also check out the Plain English Campaign (http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/).
Reference desk wannabe at your service.
information literacy
Could we call in the people who killed off computer literacy? I prefer “critical thinking,” which catches the most of it.
I dislike “Finding Aid”. The first time I heard that term, my reaction was “What the heck?”
But then I’m just the “machine-readable encoder”. 🙂
“Finding aid” is right up there… I’ll add it to the list!
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. I agree that much jargon is useless and unnecessary. However, there is a need for specialized terminology in order to communicate effectively. Yes, you have to keep the audience in mind. But just because a term is not understood by every single person who might encounter it doesn’t mean it’s not a useful term. Anyone doing research, for example, really should know what a “citation” is. What the heck else would you call it?
I hope that in your work to expose jargon you also are able to provide acceptable substitutes for words that are unclear to many people. According to Kupersmith, “database” is one of those words that nobody understands. Well I haven’t found any really good substitutes for that word. The word “resource” is so broad and ambiguous I hate using it too, but I can’t find a better one.
Walter Underwood’s comment makes a key point: these terms aren’t evil in themselves, it’s
a question of appropriateness for the audience.
Of course, when you’re writing for an audience that doesn’t understand the jargon, it also means that they may not understand the distinctions that the jargon exists to make.
So, it’s not just your vocabulary that would change, but possibly also the ideas you’re expressing. This is why librarians often resist the idea of simplifying language, because it may have the effect of “dumbing down” the website, handout, presentation or whatever.
One way to approach this problem is through progressive disclosure (whoops, education jargon), using commonly understood terms and relatively broad topics on the homepage, or at the beginning of a handout or presentation, and then *carefully* introducing necessary distinctions and their corresponding terms.
Another complexity in all this is how to foster an organizational culture (whoops, management jargon) where librarians use their professional vocabulary among themselves, but are aware of the jargon issue, and conscientiously use understandable language in communicating with users.
This should keep us all busy for a while.
“Finding aid” is quite appropriate when what’s being described is a finding aid, that is, a description of what will be found in a particular archive collection. The term is quite familiar to researchers and can quickly and easily be taught to new researchers. However, it drives me nuts to hear a bibliography or a bookmark called a “finding aid” (unless it’s the result of a joking archivist).
Worse, much worse than jargon to me is the way librarians use abbreviations and initialisms. Though I didn’t think to save it, I once received an email something like this:
Dale, please notify all the Js to a PRD TS. Each ag. must attend for CoMS credit on the PDP. This is mandatory. Speakers are from CAT, DEX, and….
Why not just say,
Dale, please notify the children’s librarians to attend a training session, planned by the public relations. Each agency (branch would be better) must attend if they want to receive the “Materials Selection” credit on their location’s performance development plan. We’ll have folks from cataloging and design and exhibits departments. I think it will be a great class and fun at the same time.
(Note: to protect the library and individual involved, I’ve tried to make this completely illogical, but I think you all get my point. This is likely not from the library you think it is.)
Other current usage I don’t care for:
“shop” (Do you think Ellen’s shop is the right one?–Meaning, should cataloging do this)
that old chestnut “empower” (Let’s empower the front line staff–Meaning, let’s quit giving them what the need to do their jobs and then blame them if anything goes wrong; THANKFULLY, no one in my current job uses this.)
“strategy” (especially when “tactic” is what’s meant)
“search catalog” (Meaning, find what you’re looking for or check to see if we have it.)
for that matter “catalog”!
Inside a profession, it’s a vocabulary. But plastered on websites and press releases and used to communicate with our users, it’s jargon.
I like John’s work a lot, but it has two limitations (not weaknesses, just limitations). One is that it’s focused (not exclusively) on words and phrases. But jargon also has to do with how ideas are expressed. Removing and replacing a word doesn’t always work. As Patricia notes, if it’s not a database, what is it? Well–to start with, the question is all wrong. The question is what are we trying to communicate and how does the user understand that? (John addresses this implicitly but not explicitly.) The second issue is that the “fixes” John lists are excellent, but not always practicable, and not only that, a lot of jargon can be prevented in advance if people who are communicating think about what they are saying and who they are saying it to. I guess I’m being a hopeless optimist in saying that people can be taught to write better. Most library communication falls into what Anne Lamott would call a “s—-y first draft,'” to quote her deservedly famous chapter from “Bird by Bird.” Just getting to a second or third draft can work wonders.
I vehemently disagree with librarians who believe that to clarify terms is to dumb down. (These are not folks who would get far in any MFA in writing program!) I hear this all the time from academics, and I think it stems from the anxiety librarians can have about their place in the academy.
Dale, did you catch my article about Wikipedia in CIO.com? the paragraph that got some Google juice is the one where I quote W’s editors talking in acronyms. They sound like that paragraph is yours!
I admit to liking the word “catalog,” but I have a bad feeling that’s like me liking the phrase “dial tone…”
Dale, I just realized why I don’t like “finding aid”: sounds too much like a benefit concert for St. Bernards 😉
“Finding aid” fooled me. I would have said that was a discovery tool, not metadata. I’m not a complete noob about library jargon, either. I implemented Dublin Core support ten years ago, I’ve read ANSI/NISO ZA39.19, I tried to read the OpenURL spec, and I can spell FRBR. I even read about EAD years ago, but the info didn’t stick. Obviously.
Duh. Typo, it’s Z39.19. Maybe my subconscious was confusing it with ZA in LCC. If that all makes sense to you, you are solidly inside the domain.
John Kupersmith’s and Dorothea Salo’s comments remind me of a couple of techniques we used in the on-line docs for Ultraseek. One was to assume that the admins were not native speakers of English, since we sold a fair amount in Europe and Asia. Another was to think about translating the docs into another language, something we did with the user documentation, but not the admin pages.
With those in mind, “via” looks like pretty exotic language, and “click here” begins to look good. You can get a lot done with simple declarative sentences.
Walt, right — John’s approach suggests that all good writing needs review and testing, and that’s correct. (In writing, it’s called revision and workshopping ;> ) So the “foreign language” approach is both diagnostic and remedial, to trot out two words I shouldn’t be using on a Monday morning 😉
Of course, in many of our libraries, a good portion of users are indeed not native speakers of English.
When I’m writing about libraries for the public (not anything I do often, but it has happened), I usually have my friends read what I’ve written and then tell me what they think it means. The results have been amazing and amusing. I can’t think of an example, but nothing beats testing text with a sample of the expected audience.